toddler

Arlo turned fifteen months old yesterday- that’s right, fifteen- One Five. Which isn’t really all that old- but if you ask me it feels like he’s been around a lot longer. In fact, I honestly don’t remember what my life was like before he was around. I do remember I used to drink a cup of coffee for the first two hours of my morning while looking out the window as the neighbor mowed his lawn (Routine). But whatelse did I do with my time? Really! What did I do with my time? I used to have a lot of it- like an abundance of it- truckloads of it- like if time was money, then I used to make it rain all day and all night.

I honestly wish I could go back in time and arrest myself for time mismanagement- or at least punch myself in the throat and tell myself not to be such an idiot with my time. And what’s up with the gold chains I used to wear- what ever happen to those?

Time feels different now- it goes by so fast… but so slow just the same. The day to day seems somewhat monotonous with not much happening but then I look back a week or two and all of a sudden I have a kid that is walking- full on walking and running away from me- Often I look up to see a poop-smeared-bare-ass running away from me in the middle of a diaper change. When did that happen? He used to just lay there and enjoy a change- now he flips and hees and haws and I have to perform a diaper change like I’m a championship midget wrestler- I mean I have to be- the kid is semi-professional now- which makes me a super proud Papa.

Don’t worry, the tattoo is not real- he just uses it for the show. (No real tattoos until he’s 12 years old- I’m strict on that)

So… um… yeah… thanks for letting me pull you into my gutter fantasy for a moment… but, yeah, he’s walking now- full tilt. I think last time I wrote he was dragging himself around like a sloth- he went from that to some fancy knee crawling for a moment- but then we took him out of town and away from his wheelie bug walkers for a weekend and he just started walking- that was Father’s Day weekend. Now he’s unstoppable- no holds bar.

Last week I unknowingly gave him his last bottle ever- which I am super sad about. Apparently you are supposed to ween kids off the bottle sometime around now for the sake of their growing teeth. Anyway, we went out of town for a long weekend and disrupted our usual bottle routine so he didn’t have one for a few days- which meant it was a good time to just continue the absence of the bottle. Unfortunately, for me, it was my favorite time of the day (except for nap time). It was the one time that him and I could curl up together on the couch- He’d calm down and we’d quietly cuddle while he drank his warm bottle before nap time. Sometimes if I was lucky he would fall asleep on me. Gone now are those days and I didn’t even get to say goodbye. (Insert tear here)

He’s just growing up so fast! (insert another tear here)

He’s even actively communicating now. We’ve been teaching him American Sign Language since he was around nine months old and in the past couple months he has started signing back. He started out saying “more” (which for him just means ‘I want’). His signing vocabulary has expanded to water, airplane, milk, strawberry, cheese, bird, nap time, food/eat, and he signed “dog” today. He signs fishy to me when he wants sardines- his all time favorite food. If prompted, he can also point to his belly, his noggin and Mazzy- and if he’s hanging out with his pants off he can point to his peener- I don’t know who taught him that.

Don’t worry though, he’s not any kind of super child though. He still shits his pants on a regular basis- often twice a day. He also has a terribly annoying scream when he is not getting what he wants. He is horrible at car rides and he turns into a bowed wooden plank when I am trying to put him in his carseat. When he has a tooth coming in he can be a real whiney pain in the ass. And to top it off, sometimes he wakes up with boogers stuck to his forehead. So he still has some work to do.

I don’t know what else to say. His favorite thing to do right now is to walk through the garden and pick ripe strawberries and raspberries- in fact, we were just visiting his grandparents in Idaho and he had a wonderful time picking huckleberries with them. He also loves to terrorize Mazzy. He likes to hang out and look at books- His favorite right now is Cuddly Dudley. He likes to dance to music and clap his hands. He’s becoming something real now, not just a baby that does baby things, but a toddler that does toddler things. He’s becoming a real boy… and it’s happening so fast.